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A 26-year-old Hazleton man never would have been charged with a murder that occurred on Feb. 2 if he had served his full sentence for selling heroin.

Terrence W. Clarke was given a 4½-year sentence that would have expired after Garey Cox was shot to death outside Shaker's Bar, 711 W. Broad St.

Instead, Clarke, who was released early, faces charges that he killed Cox.

Back in 2009 when a federal grand jury handed down an indictment against Clarke and seven others, court papers said he belonged to the Sex, Money and Murder set of a street gang. The papers also linked him to a shooting of a member of a rival gang and of a bystander in the F.G. Cantina on North Wyoming Street on the Fourth of July that year.

The Hazleton police chief at the time, Robert Ferdinand, said taking the case to federal court meant the defendants faced higher minimum sentences than they would have faced in the state courts.

Clarke could have spent 20 years in prison and the rest of his life on parole if he received the maximum sentence on various charges that included selling heroin and crack cocaine.

Instead he pleaded guilty to one charge of selling heroin and was released from prison on Oct. 11, 2013.

The terms of his probation forbade him from possessing a firearm or making "excessive use" of alcohol.

On Feb. 2, a state trooper said he saw Clarke fire a gun as he emerged from a crowd gathered around Shaker's Bar, according to testimony presented at Clarke's preliminary hearing last Friday.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com

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